With the significant investment of time and effort needed to learn Greek, developing a strategy for language retention is critical. How might a student develop good habits for retention early on? What pedagogy should a professor adopt to build retention exercises into course work? Constantine Campbell offers valuable insight in this excerpt from his newest resource Advances in the Study of Greek and describes what has been key in his retention of the language.

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This chapter differs from previous chapters in that it does not address issues about Greek per se, but rather the teaching and learning of the language. It is all very well to apprehend the significant (and some very significant) changes in our understanding of the Greek language, but what will be the…

Luther was right: “Insofar as we love the gospel, to that same extent let us study the ancient tongues.”

So also contends in Constantine Campbell in his new book Advances in the Study of Greek. Yet studying the “ancient tongues” can be a daunting task, particularly keeping abreast of cutting-edge shifts that impact how we think about and teach the text. Campbell’s book ameliorates such a task.

Blending academic acumen with practical resourcement, Campbell’s book offers an introduction to modern advances in the study of New Testament Greek with intelligible accessibility.

In particular, his work sheds significant light on linguistics and its bearing on modern Greek studies, a vital vein of study for any exegete.

Everyone needs a break once in a while, and Bill Mounce is taking one from his weekly column on biblical Greek until September. Meanwhile, we’ve hand-picked some classic, popular posts from the “Mondays with Mounce” archive for your summer reading and Greek-studying pleasure.

This post explores translating the term “ἔργον ἀγαθόν”. Mounce explains how our own perceptions can make us prefer one translation over another.

One of the more interesting expressions in the Pastorals is ἔργον ἀγαθόν, “good deed.” It occurs 6 times.

Women are to be clothed in good deeds (1 Tim 2:10). A widow shows herself to be godly by devoting herself to good deeds (1 Tim 5:10). If you cleanse yourself from what is impure, you are prepared for any good deed (2 Tim 2:21). Scripture equips Timothy for…

For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him. (John 3:17)

Our Lord Jesus Christ appointed his apostles to be guides and teachers of the world and stewards of his divine mysteries. He asked them to shine out like lamps to cast their light not only on the Jews, but on every country under the sun and on people settled in distant lands. These holy men became the pillars of truth, and Jesus said that he was “sending them just as the Father had sent him” (John 17:18).

These words make clear the dignity of the apostolate and the glory of the power given to them, but they also give them a hint about the methods they are to adopt in their apostolic mission. For if Christ sent out…

In chapter 6 of their recent release The Pastor Theologian, Gerald Hiestand and Todd Wilson take the opportunity to explain the three categories they refer to as “Pastor Theologian.”

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The Pastor Theologian: A Taxonomy

In the previous two chapters, we detailed the negative effects on the church that have come about through the bifurcation of the theologian and the pastor. In sum, this divorce has led to the theological anemia of the church and the ecclesial anemia of theology. What, then, might be the solution to these twin dilemmas?

Our answer, of course, is a recovery of the pastor theologian. The return of theologians to the pastorate addresses the theological anemia that has plagued pastoral ministry since the Enlightenment. This, in turn, provides a vital and now-missing resource for deepening the theological integrity of the people…

In their new book Gerald Hiestand and Todd Wilson have identified one of the more important crises of our day: the divorce of the theologian and the pastor. The result is theological and ecclesial anemia.

Their book offers an ancient antidote. It resurrects a vision for the ministerial vocation that’s theologically engaged yet pastoral in essence: the Pastor Theologian.

What is a pastor theologian, you ask? Every pastor is their congregation’s primary theologian. And all pastors are called to provide theological leadership. Yet there are “those within pastoral community who have unique theological interests and gifting.” (80)

These are whom Hiestand and Wilson have in mind. They engage with theology for the sake of their local church. They also construct and disseminate…

Everyone needs a break once in a while, and Bill Mounce is taking one from his weekly column on biblical Greek until September. Meanwhile, we’ve hand-picked some classic, popular posts from the “Mondays with Mounce” archive for your summer reading and Greek-studying pleasure.

In today’s post, Mounce opens up John 15:2-3, where Jesus explained the Vine and the Branches – a fine example of word play in the original Greek. Though translation is often tricky, Mounce clearly describes and believes that the Word is clear.

I suspect that there is nothing harder to bring into English than a play on words. When that play on words branches (pun intended) into metaphors (and the question of how hard to push the imagery), and into the relationship between justification and…

They recognized him as the same man who used to sit begging at the temple gate called Beautiful, and they were filled with wonder and amazement at what had happened to him. (Acts 3:10)

Therefore, when the apostle Peter was on his way up to the temple and was asked for alms by the lame man, he replied, “Silver and gold I have not; but what I have I give you. In the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, arise and walk” (Acts 3:6). What is more sublime than this humility? And what could be richer than this poverty? Though Peter cannot assist with money, he can confer the gift of a restored nature. With a word Peter brought healing to the man who had been lame from birth; he could not give a coin with Caesar’s image, but he…

As Peter Scazzero argues in his recent book The Emotionally Healthy Leader, God has given everyone power and leadership in some area, and he calls us to wield them well. Engage in this extraction from the book to discover some of the reasons we don’t lead well.

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Power and Wise Boundaries

The most painful lessons I’ve learned in thirty-five years of Christian leadership have involved the exercise of power and having wise boundaries. Navigating the issue of power is a true test of both character and leadership. We’re more than willing to talk about the abuse of power when news breaks about a scandal in someone else’s life, but the minefields surrounding the use of power are rarely acknowledged, much less openly discussed, in Christian circles. This silence leads to consequences and significant harm, with the potential…

The perfections of the triune God may be treated profitably under various aspects. Under the aspect of “divine attributes,” God’s perfections are studied as truths about God’s being, always alert to the fact that, properly speaking, God does not have attributes since God is his perfect being, power, wisdom, and love. Under the aspect of “divine goods”—Gregory of Nyssa’s lovely description of the divine perfections—God’s perfections are treated with a view to God’s status as the supreme object of desire and delight, in whose presence is fullness of joy and at whose right hand are pleasures evermore. Both of these approaches are common to natural theology and revealed theology insofar as these disciplines treat God as the efficient and final cause of his creatures.

I have chosen, however, to treat God’s perfections under the aspect of The Divine Names. Though…

Pastors are suffering, because they don’t know who they are and what they are supposed to be doing; churches are suffering, because there is a deep, chronic theological deficit within our congregations; the academy is suffering, because post-Enlightenment academics ceased to view the pastorate as the best context for robust intellectual engagement.

The culprit? Nonexistent pastor theologians.

That’s the verdict according to a new book by pastor theologians Todd Wilson and Gerald Hiestand, The Pastor Theologian. In it they argue what many of us have witnessed and personally experienced:

For the next two days, we are hosting the Dive into the Bible eBook Sale. Interpreting the Bible is hands-on work. The eBooks selected for this sale give you practical tools for understanding the Bible’s deep meaning. They will help you discover Scripture’s original message, and what Scripture means for life today.